Joy to world, the Lord has come! We all love to sing this song at Christmas and what a joyous time of year it is. The theme in my home at Christmas is JOY! I like to challenge the people who come over to my home to guess how many “JOYs” I have around my house. It is so much fun to watch as they start outside and work their way in, counting all the “joy” words they can find. Do you find joy at Christmas? Joy is something that can be hard for people to grasp this time of year. I have a friend that lost her husband and she is having a hard time finding joy in the Christmas season. I also have a friend whose daughter just got married and she is discovering a lot of joy this year. Joy is part of the Fruit of the Spirit and has both a feeling and a satisfaction to it. We can “feel” joy when something makes us happy; we can also experience the “satisfaction” of joy deep inside even when things might not go as we planned. I encourage you to find joy this Christmas in the good and bad times. Seek it out when it is hard to find, hold on to it, and cherish it when you have it. The Bible tells us that “…the joy of the Lord is our strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). It also tells us to “Count it all joy when we face trials…” (James 1:2). Did you see that – the Bible even tells us to count our joys!!! So whether you are finding a lot of joy this Christmas season or having a hard time locating joy, keep searching. Count your joy – especially the joy of celebrating Jesus, not only at Christmas, but every day. Someone has said that JOY really stands for:
Jesus first
Others second
Yourself last
If we keep this perspective we will be counting a lot of JOY!! Then others around us will be encouraged to find JOY this Christmas too.
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